Chapter 13: Citizen Journalism and the North Belgian Peace March

While such tolerance is more often associated with Western democracies, Carpentier, De Brabander, and Cammaerts (Chapter 13) demonstrate in their analysis of the Belgian peace movement that citizen journalism is also here a means to enable alternative or activist voices to be heard. They argue that the “active presence of the Indymedia.be (volunteer) staff members” at peace marches and associated events “highlights the interweaving of citizen journalism and peace activism.” That is, activists both report and actively support the objectives of such activities. They suggest that citizen journalism needs “to be seen as an inseparable part of civil society,” since this form of participatory media enables citizens to “be active in one of many (micro-)spheres relevant to daily life, organize different forms of deliberation, and exert their rights to communicate.”

Authors: Nico Carpentier, Ludo De Brabander, and Bart Cammaerts

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